Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (June 17, 2025)
After 2007’s 300 made him a star, Gerard Butler tended to gravitate toward more roles in a heroic vein. However, he branched out into darker parts as well, and 2009’s Law Abiding Citizen offers an example.
In 1999, Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte) and his accomplice Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart) attempt to rob the home of Clyde Shelton (Butler). This goes awry and leaves Clyde’s wife (Brooke Mills) and daughter (Ksenia Hulayev) dead.
Due to issues with evidence, prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) cuts a deal with Darby to testify against his partner. Though this sends Ames to death row, it releases Darby from prison after a few years.
Still disillusioned 10 years later, Clyde goes after everyone involved with the case. This leads him on a deadly path that only Nick might be able to stop.
Although my introduction might imply Butler plays a villain in Citizen, that doesn’t feel like an accurate description of the role. While Clyde ends up breaking laws, he does so out of a misguided sense of justice.
Indeed, if told from a different POV, Citizen could make Clyde the protagonist. Perhaps it wouldn’t paint him as noble, but he could come across as an anti-hero who seeks true justice despite a flawed legal system.
Whatever the point of view, the film comes with plenty of room for intrigue. In the hands of director F. Gary Gray, however, Citizen becomes a fairly one-dimensional affair.
Rather than pursue a realistic path, Citizen leaps into flights of fantasy. Much of the film comes across like a variant on the Saw franchise.
That occurs because Citizen turns Clyde into a super-mastermind. Actually, the more I think of it, the more I feel Citizen leans toward 1995’s Se7en as its primary source of inspiration.
Whereas in Saw, “Jigsaw” trapped people and forced them to work through sadistic puzzles, John Doe of Se7en committed his crimes and the cops chased him. Jigsaw and Doe both attempted to teach lessons, but Doe became the one more overtly involved in a morality tale.
Citizen’s Clyde follows a similar path. Whereas Doe wanted to illustrate the degradation of modern society, Clyde desires to point out the flaws in the criminal justice system.
In other hands, perhaps Citizen could’ve delivered a nuanced look at the topics. Heck, forget “nuanced”, as I’d settle for “even vaguely believable”.
Unfortunately, Citizen makes Clyde an unstoppable mastermind – until he does get stopped in one of the least logical conclusions I can imagine. When I read lists of good movies with terrible endings, I often see Citizen, and I get why viewers dislike the finale.
However, to include Citizen in these discussions, I need to view it as an actual good movie, which I don’t. Despite a lot of potentially intriguing threads, it pursues its themes in a ludicrous manner.
The main issue comes from our need to accept Clyde as always being 12 steps ahead of everyone else. The film imbues him with the ability to play fourth-dimensional chess, and these aspects of the plot inspire eye-rolling.
Oh, I guess we find some sporadic entertainment from the sheer nuttiness of Clyde’s schemes. He brings about so many impossible plans that we can take pleasure from the way in which these mousetraps unfold.
Nonetheless, the extreme lack of reality involved becomes a problem. Citizen eventually attempts to justify Clyde’s super-skills but this feels like a tacked-on bit of exposition that doesn’t seem convincing.
As it progresses, Citizen tends to become about its form of cat and mouse, with character and narrative development cast aside. We know it’ll eventually lead toward a direct confrontation between Nick and Clyde, so the script barely bothers to build any other form of tension.
Instead, we simply follow the inevitable executions of everyone Nick knows. Spoiler alert? Maybe, but the film pursues its plot in such an obvious manner that none of this should come as a surprise.
Citizen also comes with a disturbing willingness to condemn the criminal justice system. Eventually, it paints Nick’s initial machinations as “wrong”.
I disagree and think he took the right path when he cut a deal with Clarence. As Nick notes, without that bargain, both criminals might’ve gone free.
Did Clarence get the punishment his actions deserved? No, but he nonetheless went to prison, and his partner got sent to death row.
Because Clarence didn’t get the ultimate punishment as well, Citizen wants us to view the whole legal system as corrupt. This seems misguided at best.
Indeed, Citizen leans toward a fascist POV whereby any safeguards to protect the accused are bad. This perspective damages an already problematic movie.
Citizen does boast the bones of a compelling thriller – and potentially a thoughtful one as well given the legal and ethical issues it raises. Unfortunately, it develops in such a ham-fisted and ridiculous manner that the end result causes more exasperation than thrills.
